Posthuman Folklore

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tok Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Western Discourse ◽  
Human Ontology ◽  
Narrative Thread

Posthuman Folklore explores how our human condition is increasingly thought of, and performed, in posthuman terms. Insights from animal studies have triggered the “animal turn” in scholarship, while the increasing digitization of human culture and the newly emerging roles of androids and artificial intelligences provide yet another crux for reconsidering what it means to be a person. Taken together, such outlooks cast in doubt the previous assurances of human ontology which were lodged in Western discourse. This book explores not only the scholarship behind such moves, but also, and perhaps more importantly, the ways in which everyday people are increasingly enacting posthumanism in their everyday lives. The book follows a narrative thread of various case studies ranging from the pre-hominid to the cyborg, and ends with a futurist appraisal of current trajectories.

scholarly journals Beyond Quietism: Transformative Experience in Pyrrhonism and Wittgenstein

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rico Gutschmidt
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Transformative Experience ◽  
Philosophical Practice ◽  
Transformative Experiences ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism ◽  
Philosophical Questions ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Human Condition

Pyrrhonian skepticism is usually understood as a form of quietism, since it is supposed to bring us back to where we were in our everyday lives before we got disturbed by philosophical questions. Similarly, the ‘therapeutic’ and ‘resolute’ readings of Wittgenstein claim that Wittgenstein’s ‘philosophical practice’ results in the dissolution of the corresponding philosophical problems and brings us back to our everyday life. Accordingly, Wittgenstein is often linked to Pyrrhonism and classified as a quietist. Against this reading, I will employ Laurie Paul’s notion of epistemically transformative experience and argue that Pyrrhonian skepticism and Wittgenstein’s philosophy can be interpreted as a philosophical practice that changes our self-understanding in significant ways. I will argue that this practice can evoke transformative experiences and is thereby able to yield a non-propositional insight into the finitude of the human condition. This shows that Pyrrhonian skepticism and Wittgenstein’s philosophy go beyond quietism.

Sooner or later we will melt together: Framing the digital in the everyday

First Monday ◽  
2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Beer
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Empirical Case Studies

Digital technologies are increasingly pervading our everyday lives. Many of our everyday practices involve the appropriation of digital technologies. The aim of this piece is to discuss two central issues surrounding this digitalisation of everyday life: (i) what constitutes digital culture?; and, (ii) how do digital technologies transform ownership? These questions are considered in this work with the intention of creating a benchmark from which future explorative (empirical) case studies can be developed. The central argument of the piece is that the study of digital technologies should be framed within everyday life. In other words, the study of digital technologies should be redefined as the study of the digitalisation of everyday life.

Bestiarium Judaicum

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Geller
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Heinrich Heine ◽  
Critical Animal Studies ◽  
Close Textual Analysis ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Human Animal

Given the vast inventory of verbal and visual images of nonhuman animals (pigs, dogs, vermin, rodents, apes, etc.) disseminated for millennia to debase and bestialize Jews (the Bestiarium Judaicum), this work asks: What is at play when Jewish-identified writers employ such figures in their narratives and poems? Bringing together Jewish cultural studies (examining how Jews have negotiated Jew-Gentile difference) and critical animal studies (analyzing the functions served by asserting human-animal difference), this monograph focuses on the writings of primarily Germanophone authors, including Sigmund Freud, Heinrich Heine, Franz Kafka, Gertrud Kolmar, H. Leivick, Felix Salten, and Curt Siodmak. It ferrets out of their nonhuman-animal constructions their responses to the bestial answers upon which the Jewish and animal questions converged and by which varieties of the species “Jew” were depicted. Along with close textual analysis, it examines both personal and social contexts of each work. It explores how several writers attempted to subvert the identification of the Jew-animal by rendering indeterminable the human-animal “Great Divide” being played out on actual Jewish bodies and in Jewish-Gentile relations as well as how others endeavored to work-through identifications with those bestial figures differently: e.g., Salten’s Bambi novels posed the question of “whether a doe is sometimes just a female deer,” while Freud, in his case studies, manifestly disaggregated Jews and animals even as he, perhaps, animalized the human. This work also critically engages new-historical (M. Schmidt), postcolonial (J. Butler and J. Hanssen), and continental philosophic (G. Agamben) appropriations of the conjunction of Jew and animal.

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) and depression: From animal studies to the human condition

Life Sciences ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (25) ◽  
pp. 2921-2937 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P Redrobe ◽  
Yvan Dumont ◽  
Rémi Quirion
Keyword(s):  
Neuropeptide Y ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Human Condition

scholarly journals Understanding social economy through a complexity lens: Four case studies in Northwestern Ontario

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-59
Author(s):  
Connie Nelson ◽  
Mirella L. Stroink ◽  
Charles Z. Levkoe ◽  
Rachel Kakegamic ◽  
Esther McKay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Social Economy ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Discussion Section ◽  
Northwestern Ontario ◽  
The Social

Broadly described, the social economy refers to a series of initiatives with common values representing explicit social objectives. The roots of social economy organizations predate the neoliberal economy and are integral to the human condition of coming together in mutual support to address challenges that benefit from collective efforts. Drawing on a complexity science approach, this paper analyzes four case studies situated in Northwestern Ontario—blueberry foraging, Cloverbelt Local Food Co-op, Willow Springs Creative Centre and Bearskin Lake First Nations—to demonstrate key features of social economy of food systems. Their unifying feature is a strong focus on local food as a means to deliver social, economic and environmental benefits for communities. Their distinct approaches demonstrate the importance of context in the emergence of the social economy of food initiatives. In the discussion section, we explore how these case study initiatives re-spatialize and re-socialize conventional food system approaches.

The Economics of Platforms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Belleflamme ◽  
Martin Peitz
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Real World ◽  
Network Effects ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Vital Importance ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Real World Applications ◽  
Price Strategies

Digital platforms controlled by Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Tencent and Uber have transformed not only the ways we do business, but also the very nature of people's everyday lives. It is of vital importance that we understand the economic principles governing how these platforms operate. This book explains the driving forces behind any platform business with a focus on network effects. The authors use short case studies and real-world applications to explain key concepts such as how platforms manage network effects and which price and non-price strategies they choose. This self-contained text is the first to offer a systematic and formalized account of what platforms are and how they operate, concisely incorporating path-breaking insights in economics over the last twenty years.

scholarly journals Coexistence of Diversified Dog Socialities and Territorialities in the City of Concepción, Chile

Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 298
Author(s):  
Hugo Capellà Miternique ◽  
Florence Gaunet
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Opportunity To Learn ◽  
Urban Habitat ◽  
Urban Identity ◽  
Stray Dogs ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Feral Dogs ◽  
Ethnographic Methodology ◽  
The City

There has been scant research on the presence of stray dogs in cities. Studying their very considerable presence in Concepción (Chile) provided a unique opportunity to learn more about the different patterns of sociality and territoriality exhibited by the dog species. Via a set of case studies, we examined the behavior of urban dogs, adopting an ethnographic methodology. This yielded findings of the dogs’ cognitive, social and spatial adjustment abilities, i.e., their territorialities. Our hypothesis was validated: We found numerous types of sociability, we confirmed the presence of two previously established categories: family dogs (pets, guard dogs and beggars’ dogs) and stray dogs (dogs almost entirely unused to humans, aggressive dogs at the far end of the campus and feral dogs in the woods). We also identified three new ones: familiar stray dogs in packs (dogs both spatially and socially close to humans), pet-stray dogs (i.e., village dogs interacting closely with people) and free-roaming pet dogs. We conclude that an ongoing two-way bond between humans and animals allowed these dogs to became part of a city’s urban identity and explains the stray dogs’ plasticity in terms of adapting to the diversified urban habitat. We postulate that it was the human culture and range of urban areas in Concepción that gave rise to this unique diversity of sociospatial positioning and level of adjustment (e.g., dogs crossing crosswalks).

Bodily Selves: Identity and Shared Realities among Humans and Spirits in Zanzibar

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjersti Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Social Positioning ◽  
People’S Daily ◽  
The World ◽  
Human World ◽  
People's Daily ◽  
The Human Condition

AbstractThe paper explores the ways in which spirits calledmasheitaniormajinni(singl.sheitaniorjinni)engage in people’s daily lives in Zanzibar Town, Zanzibar. It is argued that the phenomenon of spirits and other forms of ‘spectral’ beings may offer clues to an improved understanding of society and a more precise perception of the various concerns and paradoxes people cope with in their everyday lives. Reflecting on matters of identity, the concept of the person, and the human condition, it is suggested that to most people the human world appears to be rather unpredictable and chaotic while the world of spirits, in contrast, is seen as stable and predictable. The spirits’ involvement in people’s everyday lives and, moreover, the extent to which peoples’ relationships with different kinds of spirits affect negotiations of identity and social positioning are discussed with reference to the ethnographic material.

Monks’ Mindfulness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. L. Cassaniti
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Chiang Mai ◽  
Representative Case ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The City ◽  
Meditative Practices

This chapter examines the ways that monks in Thailand make sense of and make use of mindfulness in the course of their everyday lives at Thai monasteries. It focuses on two monks in particular as representative case studies: a rural wandering thudong monk in a remote monastery in “Mae Jaeng” outside of Chiang Mai, and an urban monk at the busy university monastery of Wat Suan Dok in the city. In relating the experiences of these two monks it explains some of the most common definitions of mindfulness in Thailand, as raluk dai (‘recollecting the mind’), along with some of the most common affective uses and some of the most common meditative practices to cultivate mindfulness. It also introduces some of the most well-known textual renderings of mindfulness in the region, as drawing from Thai iterations of Pali-language texts.

The Oxford Handbook of Music Making and Leisure

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Leisure Activity ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Vital Part ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Music Making ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Human Condition

Music has been a vital part of leisure activity across time and cultures. Contemporary commodification, commercialization, and consumerism, however, have created a chasm between conceptualizations of music making and numerous realities in our world. From a broad range of perspectives and approaches, this handbook explores avocational involvement with music (i.e., amateur, recreation) as an integral part of the human condition. The chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Music Making and Leisure present a myriad of ways for reconsidering—refocusing attention on—the rich, exciting, and emotionally charged ways in which people of all ages make time for making music through music learning and participation. The contexts discussed are broadly Western, including a diversity of voices from scholars across fields and disciplines, framing complex and multifaceted phenomena that may be helpfully, enlighteningly, and perhaps provocatively framed as music making and leisure. The book is structured in four parts: (I) Relationships to and with Music; (II) Involvement and Meaning; (III) Scenes, Spaces, and Places; and (IV) On the Diversity of Music Making and Leisure. This volume may be viewed as an attempt to reclaim music making and leisure as a serious concern for, among others, policy makers, scholars, and educators, who perhaps risk eliding some or even most of the ways in which music, so central to community and belonging, is integrated into the everyday lives of people. As such, this handbook looks beyond the obvious (of course music making is leisure!), asking readers to consider anew, “What might we see when we think of music making as leisure?”

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